Lisa Daigle, Assistant Managing Editor

MEDINA, Minn. Polaris Government and Defense -- along with its teammates Applied Research Associates and Neya Systems, known collectively as Team Polaris -- has won a contract from the U.S. Army to supply its optionally manned MRZR X multimode vehicle platform as one of the robotic systems used by infantry brigade combat teams for the next year of trials as part of the Army's Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport (SMET) program.

TAMPA, Fla. Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) provider AeroVironment -- which supplies UASs to both military and commercial users -- won contract awards from the U.S. Army during April 2018 for procurement of the company’s Switchblade Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile System (LMAMS) and Contractor Logistics Support. This most recent announcement brings the total value of Switchblade awards to $111 million since August 2017.

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada. Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) and its partners, Ascent Vision and RADA Technologies, will participate in the SOFWERX ThunderDrone Rapid Prototyping Event (RPE) III demonstration, to be held at Nellis Air Force Base in June 2018. SOFWERX is a Partnership Intermediary Agreement between Doolittle Institute and the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), created to investigate new technology for U.S. warfighters.

MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan. The U.S. Army and Northrop Grumman Corp. report that they have deployed enhanced Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) capabilities in Japan in order to advance battlespace awareness and missile defense.

NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER AIRCRAFT DIVISION, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. An engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) is working on developing an artificial intelligence (AI) system that could potentially teach itself how to recognize and remove external interference from radar signals.

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. Ruggedized graphics/video company Eizo Rugged Solutions has released its Condor GR4 3U VPX 3G-SDI capture board, a rugged single-slot graphics/capture board with four 3G-SDI inputs and outputs that the company intends for use in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) applications such as avionics, manned and unmanned video streaming, and security/surveillance.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. Technology provider Polaris Alpha has won a $2.3 million subcontract to help the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as the agency seeks to develop new artificial intelligence (AI) tools for fast-changing battlefield environments.